


We are All in Our own Private Traps

by Webtrinsic



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Gravity Falls
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Bill Cipher is a Jerk, Blood and Injury, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Family Feels, Guilt, Hurt Dipper Pines, Hurt Mabel Pines, Hurt Stan Pines, Hurt Stanford Pines, I wouldn't exactly call this a fix it fic, Major Character Injury, Melancholy, Nightmares, Parallels, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:22:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Whereas Mabel's prison bubble is conjured within her own happiness, Dipper's is chained and festered with his own self-loathing.
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Ford Pines, Dipper Pines & Ford Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	We are All in Our own Private Traps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yayeet32](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yayeet32/gifts).



> honestly we need more dipper whump, i want a lot of it. Also i get why ppl r like dipper and ford have enough time together so they make so much mabel and ford content you cant even find dipper and him stuff anymore and it makes me sad cause I'm just like i need whump for those two
> 
> ALSO IN DIPPER'S MIND SCREEN THINGY U SEE HIM TALK ABOUT HIM FEELING FAT AND SUCH SO IM LIKE ????? THIS POOR BOI HAS MORE ISSUES THAN WE THOUGHT, our poor boy doesn't want to eat :( will prob do a fic on that later but ughhhhhhhhhhhh i need more whump 
> 
> also this is ford and dipper centric

Seeing as to how his mouth had gotten him into this predicament, Ford is mercifully silent as the jostling squads of the time police take on Bill, and the chaos accidentally if not miraculously freed him from his golden back scratching prison.

There isn’t much time for him to ponder or think as he pulls his magnet gun from the inner pocket of his trenchcoat and surfs down the sloping side of Bill’s triangular palace. Gravity Falls had never been the nicest of places, but Ford would rather bask in the beaten down lumbering town rather than this apocalyptic amalgamation of destruction.

The wasteland before him roared in endless echoes of madness, pressing down on him as he made the final leap. Legs running in the air to help him get ready to tumble onto the nearest rooftop. 

The sandy trenchcoat adorning his body fluffed up in the wind, helping his resistance as he fell the last few feet to earth, tucking himself together and launching his momentum so he was rolling by the time he hit the ground.

Bruises speckled beneath his many layers, legs panging but ultimately unbroken, not even sprained. It didn’t matter if they had been anyhow, he had to keep going. He hadn’t seen Dipper, Stan, or Mabel on the growing pile of concrete souls amassed together into a suitable throne of human peril.

Meaning in this vast wasteland his family was out there, hopefully in the shack where they would be protected from the revolting menagary of cryptic delightful delusions conjured by a being, a demon so cruel and ruthless, it’d gone so far as to mar a young boy’s arms with pronged scars.

The memory of Mabel retelling the thrilling story of Dipper’s possession and the subsequent harm that befell the boy because of it had his fist clenching. Jaw tightening with a low growl as he headed down the building's side ladder.

Dodging out of sight of Bill’s patrol of eye bats, Ford looked at the sky, the mosaic of colors finally too consuming for him to ignore. There were bubbles, although they weren’t as endearing as the tiny ones he saw Mabel blowing around the house, their unthreatening image didn’t ward off his better judgment.

Insanity was still tinged in their essence, and Ford can only imagine what variations of toxic splendor the bubbles induced from within. The wind acting more like a torrent than it had any right to shifted the orbs, revealing far in the distance, the perpetual outlands of Gravity Falls, two bubbles unlike the rest.

Two full and opaque bubbles, each emblazoned with the twins cipher symbols. A pink shooting star with opened, unlocked shackles hanging off of it, and a periously deep blue pine tree free of any chains.

His heart skips, the air in his lungs escapes into the garbled pit in his throat, and his eye nearly starts to bleed as it once did all those years ago. There is no worse retribution for his sins.

The agony being he isn’t the one paying for them, his family is, those two spectacular children are suffering for his crimes. For his foolishness. They are prisoners to a god because of a deal they did not make.

As much as he wants to run through the city, the trenches in this diabolical apocalyptic war, and drag them back to earth, he knows he cannot do it alone. What he wouldn’t give to have Dipper at his side, the boy had a gift of bringing the world back onto its axis. He made anyone around him more secure, a cushioned landing for when their attempts at the stars didn’t go well.

His absence was nearly as heart shattering as the day his heart pulled away from his brother at the loss of his future. Ford didn’t have any hope in reconciliation when it came to his brother, but he denied even the prospect of his apprentice being lost to his failures.

No, he’d just have to go back to the shack, reconfigure his gun so it could work once again, kill Bill, and save the kids.

It wasn’t as simple as it sounded, and even then it didn’t come out as the simplest of tasks. He just didn’t have the time or the option to do anything else otherwise, so he trekked to the bell tower.

Utilizing the magnet gun, Ford made sure that damn cooky bell that had soiled his last attempt at ridding the expanded universes of Bill couldn’t clang and give away his position yet again.

Shooting the bell with a surge it’s knocker unscrewed, falling through the broken floor with a crash that was hidden by the noise of revving engines, retreating cars, and the irritating flapping of wings that were giving chase to those roars.

Strapping the weighted weapon onto his back, securing it with the ribbon of his coat, Ford started his trek back to the shack with a frown pulling at his features and a fury lighting his core.

* * *

His own sister had conjured a replacement that he couldn’t even see while looking in the mirror. Dippy fresh resembled him in no way that Mason could even work out, even still his own sister had picked that horrendous excuse of a doppelganger instead.

He’d lost the court case and the buff waffles with muscles that could snap him in two none to gently threw him back into the barren wasteland where Soos had been acting as a desperado.

The ground crackled at his abrupt landing, dust kicking back up into his face. Dipper shut his watering eyes to prevent them from getting infested with guck before they opened again only to be met with one glowing eye and a flaming blue black hand.

“Hiya there pine tree!” the dream demon laughed, joyously, maliciously taking in the broken, dejected twelve year old with manic glee. The demon had assumed one would need a will of titanium to resist Mabel’s bubble. But he had been wrong, not about the will part, but that Mabel’s trap would be suitable enough for pine tree!

They were very different people, and as the boy coiled in on himself with a snarl, still so broken but trying to be brave. Struggling with his own resolve about being a hero, the shorter twin reassembled sixer all too well.

“You hypnotized Mabel,” the accusation is accompanied by hacking coughs, the boy’s injuries from the crash catching up with him. 

Although Bill may be a liar, the both of them knew he wasn’t currently telling a fib when the triangle retorted: “All I did was give her the tools kid, she threw you out! Guess even your own twin couldn’t love you,” it stung, but Dipper said nothing to refute it. After what he’d seen, he had to believe it.

“Grunkle Ford,” the soon to be teen murmured, his brow knotting together as he tried to bring himself back to the present, to what needed to be done. But Dipper was still yet a child, one who all summer long had to dismiss his own pain and suffering for his sister and all those around him.

“My personal back scratcher? You failed him too!” The boy’s head fell closer to the dirt and finally tears began to fall. His fight started to wane, garroting him until he was once again as helpless as his sleep deprived self that’d made their initial deal.

The self-loathing must have been an inherited family trait, because Bill had seen both Dipper’s and Sixer’s mind, and their coping mechanisms were near to numb. Permeating them with a wallowing amount of blackness that was colored by every waking thought that acted a knife digging further within. The blade fixed into their own hands.

Laughably it would seem the child even outweighed his own grand uncle, and wasn’t that the kicker? 

“There’s no room for heroes in this world pine tree, and wouldn’t you say it’s time you paid your dues?” The blue luminescent flames grew brighter, and there is a promise of malice and the complete evisceration of character.

The young boy sees it as a hell he must endure. Something that is deserved. His platitudes and apologies brought him closer, and his failures weighed heavily on his person. Chains reaching out and he puts his hands straight into their manacles, imprisoning himself, making his bed.

Dipper shakes the demon’s hand, his body going limp before it rises into the air and his own bubble traps him. An endless swamp of fog that carried his most deprecating thoughts. Black gnarled bit’s of trees pull his limbs apart, suspending his comatose form in thick molasses, it’s girth determined by his supposed sins.

It is the most effective trap for the curious, despondent, failure of a boy. Bill Cipher laughs with glee, the boy would dig his own grave, and would drown in his failures.

* * *

Ford doesn’t expect his brother and dozens of woodland creatures to be waiting inside, weapons held high above their heads.

“Oh it’s you,” Stan’s voice is irked but there’s something there beneath the surface that the scholarly twin can’t quite make out.

Rage overtakes Ford, mostly because he is furious already and looking for something to blame, of course it would all come out when he saw his brother here eating out of a can and being fanned with a pomfron.

“You’re hiding here while the kids are in danger!” 

“In danger? And why do you think they're in danger sixer? Be-Cause of you, I told you not to pull the kids into your-”

“Hey! Enough,” a loud booming voice broke through their arguing, Grenda held her formidable arms out between the two of them, pulling the pair out of their bickering.

“You two are going to shut up and find Dipper and Mabel, now,” with remarkable strength the pre-teen pushed both men from the shack not even giving Ford a chance to get to his lab and fix his destabilizer.

As if they read his mind the door is flung open yet again, Fiddleford none to gently yanking the gun off Ford’s back and out of his coat, “I’ll fix this, you go save the kids,” the door shut again and Ford didn’t have the chance to apologize to his old friend.

“We better get moving,” Ford resigns himself to his fate, beginning his trek with Stan in tow. Eerily silent as he twirls a bat in his hand, likely fighting the impulse to bash it over his head. Ford felt like hitting himself too.

* * *

“How’d they get over that canyon?” Stan finally spoke up, staring at the crashed car on the other side of the gorge where the bubbles sat.

“It looks like they jumped it Stanley,” 

“Better question, who do we get first because I vote Mabel,” Stan voiced, uncomfortable just thinking about his sweet little grand niece in the clutches of whatever was in that thing. He cared for Dipper too, but the boy had grown tough enough during the summer that Stan knew he could hold it out a little longer, especially for his sister.

Plus Stan couldn’t imagine getting Dipper without Mabel already being at their side, it’d be more of a nightmare than his brother acting like their mom after her twelfth cup of coffee.

“Dipper of course,” 

Stan snorted already shaking his head, “Why don’t we spl-”

“No, all of us being apart is what made this so frustrating to begin with,” sighing, “If you think we should gather Mabel first, we’ll get Mabel first,” it was a compromise they could agree on as they scoped out how to get across the gorge and to Mabel’s bubble, both their chests painstakingly tight.

* * *

Ford had jumped through worlds and it didn’t compare to the drop in his gut as his brother drove their stolen car over the crack in the earth. It tested several laws of physics as they landed, mostly unharmed, but he was certain they’d both be falling victim to whiplash over the next few days if they lived that long.

The two men flung themselves into the pink abyss, and Stan almost missed the burning in his eyes when Mabel had blasted him with the full force of a rainbow.

“Woah! More guests in Mabelland,” a bedazzled blue haired surfer boy shouted, his blond counterpart nodding in agreement from behind his glasses.

Mabelland, it’s funny how it only took one word for the two men to understand. The best type of prison is always the one that gives no impression of being a trap.

“You blondie, where is Mabel?” Stan asked gruffly.

“Mabel our amazing ruler is up in her tower, she’s been resting up after Mabelland’s massive trial over fantasy vs. reality,” 

“I’m assuming fantasy won,” Ford muttered, squinting against the harsh light and at the tower in the distance.

“Totally, so as punishment Dipper had to leave Mabelland,” the man explained as if it wasn’t a big deal. And maybe to this creature it wasn’t. It had no way of knowing what was beyond those walls.

What had become of Gravity Falls.

“The kid was here?” Stan questioned, his brow knotting together.

“Yeah he tried to convince Mabel reality was more important but he lost,” that could explain the boy's own bubble. They had to get Mabel and Dipper quickly.

Heading in the direction of the tower, “You think Dipper's bubble is filled with dorky weirdness too?”

If Bill’s trap consisted of the prisoners consciousness, maybe so, but the same bait didn’t work for every animal.

“I suppose it’s possible,”

The waffles guarding the tower didn’t stand a chance against Ford’s gun, and he decidedly ignored his brother's quip.

“That may have been over kill,” maybe so.

Taking two steps at a time it didn’t take them long to come face to face with Mabel at her desk, one with a plaque that deemed her the mayor of this pastel insane asylum.

“Grunkles?” She asked sounding confused but not unwelcome to their sudden appearance. 

“Mabel!” Stan affectionately sweeped her up into an embrace while Ford couldn’t help his relieved smile from taking up most of his features. 

All too glad she was alright. Unblemished by his failures.

“C’mon kid, if you want waffles so badly I’ll get you some from the diner when this is all over,” Stan bribes, moving towards the door only for the girl to frown.

“I don’t want to leave,”

“Mabel, the fate of the world is in our hands, we can’t beat Bill without you,” Ford tries to explain, feeling sickly surrounded by these loving atrocities.

The girls face twists in upset, “Did Dipper have you guys come?”

“No sweety, we need your help saving him too,” Stan sighed, looking like he himself was weighing the pros and cons of this technicolor paradise.

Maybe it’s the desperation on their faces, or her finally understanding casting her brother aside, not they knew she had, was wrong. Mabel nodded, mentally saying goodbye to her own little world, but also to her fabulous summer, and Gravity Falls itself.

Dipper had said he wouldn’t be taking Ford’s deal, but if he changed his mind after what she’d done. She’d understand. 

* * *

The sight of Dipper’s bubble is met with a plethora of feelings, none entirely pleasant, but they sike themselves up regardless. They’d fought a math wizard before, they could handle whatever nerdy fantasies that would be here as well.

Plunging into the sphere, the three topple into muddy water, very nearly missing the tree roots that would sprain their ankles if they were to tangle in them.

“This is and isn’t what I was expecting,” the deadpan isn’t appreciated, and Ford’s swatting away branches and making way through the swamp not giving the other two much time to gather their barings.

The fog threatens to separate them but they manage to stay within each other's sights, only then realizing it is not entirely silent. It has a voice, one they know all too well, and the things it says tears them to pieces.

“Maybe I should stop eating?”

“Oh no,”

“Mabel I’m sorry,”

“It’s all my fault,”

“I did this,”

“I let Bill into my mind,”

“I should have listened,”

“She’s hurt and it’s all my fault,”

“I’m sorry,” 

“I’m sorry,”

“I’m sorry,”

The torrent of loathing was never ending, and it’s more obvious than ever the boy’s trap is vile in creation.

It is one thing to deny one's wishes, it is another to deny one’s most depreciating thoughts.

“We have to find him now,” Ford growls, fearing this forever mar his brilliant apprentice's psyche. His _nephew's_ psyche.

When meeting someone new, especially family, there is the consistent hope that there was some sort of common ground. Ford had hit that in spades with his grand nephew, and it was even more so apparent now. Never had he thought he could wish they didn’t have something in common.

“Poindexter,” his brother’s voice is frantic, and the three run, nearly tripping until they meet an almost clearing. A circle surrounded by trees, the water beneath not as cloudy as the rest of the bog because it was simply a pure thick molasses of ink.

Dipper’s body floated on top, gnarled roots wrapped around his spread limbs, a particularly thick one coiling around his throat. His signature hat was missing from his head and his wet clothes seemingly swamped his body.

Unconscious, the pre-teen’s chest barely moved with his soft breaths. Skin wan and features defeatedly sunken. Broken wasn’t even close to the epitome of what was before them.

“Dipper!” Mabel cried, sloshing into the thick molasses only to nearly get stuck. Ford easily lifted her from the depths, handing the girl to his brother as he began to search through his pocket’s for something suitable to cut through the gnarled root’s holding his nephew hostage.

A curved knife seemed to prove fruitful as he began sawing through each root, Stan keeping a hand under the boy’s head so the branch wouldn’t pull. Mabel meanwhile cried, desperately shaking the boy’s shoulder.

“Dipper wake up, stop thinking stupid thoughts. It’s not your fault,” tears patterned onto the unconscious boy’s cheeks, the taller twin shaking more than a leaf in the wind. The minute Ford freed the boy’s limbs and moved to the boy’s neck, the roots moved back all at once, this time as they wrapped around the boy’s limbs they cut the skin.

“Dipper!”

“Kid!”

“Mason!”

It all came out at once, three names all for the same boy who was pulled into the darkness so suddenly none could get a hand on him before his bloodied form was thrust beneath the depths.

A trilling laugh of doom filled the bubble more prominently than the fog, Bill appeared smiling with his eye and twirling his cane and bowtie at the same time.

“And I thought I’d outdone myself with Mabel’s bubble, it would seem Pine Trees convictions were much stronger though! What failures do to humans really gives me a kick, almost more so than your foolishness, Fordsie,”

Ford’s lips curled, ready to refute and maul the monster in front of him for not only torturing his closest family member, but daring to take him away.

The bubble popped before they got the chance, the Pines family falling from the sky and falling straight into the paw of...the living mystery shack? 

“What?” Bill shouted enraged, moving to punch the shack only for the field to sprain the demon’s knuckles. Stan grabbed his great niece and nephew immediately, Dipper’s unconscious form tucked under his chin while Mabel clutched at his chest. The girl taking in the forms of the disheveled towns people with wide eyes.

“Wow I was really living it up in Mabelland,” the girl scratched the back of her neck awkwardly until she was lifted out of her Grunkles arm’s by Grenda.

“Friend!”

“I believe you’ll be needing this,” Fiddleford announced, holding the newly refurbished quantum destabilizer in his bow-legged grip.

Ford took it with a weary grin, one that was returned without hesitation from his old friend. Looking back to his family, especially Mason limp in his brother’s grip, he got ready to end this all. If not for him, then for his family.

He wouldn’t miss this time.

* * *

“He still hasn’t woken up yet,” Mabel admitted softly, brushing her hands through Dipper’s bangs, exposing his namesake as the newfound teen slept. Nothing physical was wrong, at least not anymore, salve ran over his cuts and gauze hid them from the world.

The scars that would remain they did not envy, Ford and Stan both wished they could take them for themselves, but no, it would be Dipper’s destiny for those scars to live upon.

Maybe he’d realize why Ford and potentially Mabel liked sweaters so much. 

It’d make sense his body would recoil for the time being though. His mind had been through more heartache than anyone his age had any right to. If his body processed that by trapping him in a comatose-like sleep, well, they’d make sure it was somewhere safe.

Somewhere he wasn’t alone. They’d be there, ready to talk, listen, to help banish those thoughts he was seemingly still imprisoned in. This little family had a lot to discuss, and summer was just about to end.

Hopefully, the two would come back around next summer, they were sure they would.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
